


A Bad Combination

by silima



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst?, Character Death except it's lisanna so it's fine, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Rivals, Sort Of, maybe it's more fluff, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silima/pseuds/silima
Summary: Erza and Mira always know exactly the wrong thing to say to each other. When you’re rivals, though, that’s okay.
Relationships: Erza Scarlet/Mirajane Strauss
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55
Collections: The Mirza|Erzajane Top 10 Project





	A Bad Combination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icemakestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemakestars/gifts).



> I’m not really a writer, so please don’t judge me too harshly!!

Erza was expecting the energy blast.

Months of fighting the same person makes them easy to predict. It becomes routine after a while: wake up in the morning, try to catch Mira while she’s walking out of the dorms so that they can have a good argument. Get some breakfast and aggressively try to sit at the same table as her—not because Erza wants Mirajane’s company, but because if Erza’s food is on the same table as Mira’s, it’s less likely to get flipped over and ruined in the inevitable duel. Check out the job board, fight over who gets the best jobs, start a fight if Mira doesn’t initiate one first—because if Mira doesn’t start the fight, she’s probably up to something. It’s a little exhausting, but it’s what has to be done when one is unlucky enough to live in close proximity to someone as unpleasant as Mirajane Strauss.

Their daily routines have become practically intertwined since that day they met and Mira threw a table at her head. They play a weird game of cat-and-mouse that’s constantly switching who’s the cat and who’s the mouse, one of them always seeking out the other to mess with them in some way or another. Erza has learned all the places to look for Mira when she wants to see her—and likewise, she’s learned that if she wants any privacy from Mira, she’s got to plan it carefully and expect that it won’t last long.

“ERZA! There you are!”

So, yeah. Erza came out to the river to think and have a quiet moment to herself, but she was definitely expecting the energy blast.

That didn’t mean she had to like it.

Erza ducked forward, lying flat on the ground for a few seconds while Mirajane’s purple-black energy blast flew over her head. “Requip,” she said under her breath, jumping up and switching from her everyday armor into something with a little more speed—her Flight Armor. Erza spun to face Mira, who was already in her Satan Soul form, and swung the shaft of her spear towards Mira’s side.

Erza took a deep, stuttering breath. Her eyes stung a little from before Mira had interrupted. _Focus_.

The shaft whacked Mira pretty hard in the gut—because rather than trying to block, she’d taken the hit and prepared to try and grab for the spear as soon as it came close to her, yanking Erza out of the air and effectively slowing her down, even in Flight Armor. Damn. Maybe Erza had been using that armor a little _too_ much, now that Mirajane was starting to get a handle on how to counter it…

Erza toppled onto Mirajane, which made her feel awfully stupid—it was her own fault for not anticipating Mira’s tactic. 

Still, the fact that Mira hadn’t punched her as soon as she got within range was a surprise. 

“Woah, wait,” Mira was saying. 

Erza started to requip.

“Uh, were you crying?” Mira said.

Fuck. “Wh—? I—”

“You really look like you were crying,” Mira said, sounding confused and very uncomfortable. She wasn’t moving to fight. “I, uh… are you okay? Is it something I said?”

Erza had definitely _not_ been crying, and definitely not because of Mirajane. Sure, the argument they'd had this morning had gotten a little more personal than usual when Mira made a jab at Erza's scarred eye, and yes, maybe Erza had been a little ruffled by that... but there was no way in hell Erza would be willing to admit it. She was just stressed out, that was all. And besides, letting Mirajane know that she'd been crying was humiliating enough, but letting Mirajane know that she was part of the reason? Unthinkable.

“I don’t spend my life worrying about every dumb thing you say,” Erza said crossly, even though she sort of did, at least a little bit. “And I wasn’t crying.”

“Oh, uh… well, you sure look like you were crying. With that red face, all splotchy and swollen.” Mira’s voice shifted from that uncomfortable oh-no-I-can’t-deal-with-Erza-crying voice back into her regular snarky one. “Or maybe you have allergies? That’s pretty gross.”

Erza smacked Mira halfheartedly with one armored hand. “Like you’re one to talk about splotchy faces, you albino freak. You get sunburns in the wintertime.”

“Wh—I do not!”

“Yeah? What’s with the peeling skin on your face, then?”

“Bitch, you _wish_ your skin was as good as mine!”

“Maybe I wish you’d stop _showing_ so much of it, tramp!”

“It’s not my fault I don’t like dressing like a weaponized grandma!” 

“It’s not my fault that you _never leave me alone!”_

Mirajane blinked.

Erza hated that her face felt hot, and that her vision was getting a little bit blurry, and that she really, really didn’t want Mirajane to see her cry. Erza was a strong person—she _knew_ she was. But, maybe, fighting with Mirajane all the time, and not having any really close friends even though the-guild-is-family and all that, and being suddenly separated from everyone she knew and loved and not being able to _ever talk to anybody about what happened to her_ because if she did, Jellal would kill her friends, and never having a _moment_ of privacy because she was constantly on guard against this annoying awful pretty girl who she didn’t even know how to feel about— 

Well. It’d be enough to stress anyone out.

* * *

“I mean, I’m not taking back what I said,” Mira grumbled. “I do hate how your hair’s always in your face. It makes you look like a total loser. You should clip it to the side, or something.”

Angrily, Erza tugged her bangs behind her ear, revealing the large scar that webbed across her eyelid where the old eye had been crudely removed—that huge, ugly, stupid scar. “Is _this_ better?” she snapped.

Mira didn’t even blink at the sight of the scar. “Much,” she said. “Now we even match.” She traced the black scar that ran down her face.

Erza rolled her eyes. 

For some reason, she felt better.

* * *

The world was broken, and Mirajane didn’t know what to do.

Elfman wasn’t crying. He wasn’t speaking, either, or sleeping. It’d been seventy-two hours since what happened, and neither of them could sleep. Of course they couldn’t. The world was broken.

Elfman hadn’t spoken a single coherent word since the end of the world. Whenever he tried, he started shaking violently and the only thing that came out was sobbing, so Mirajane was the one who broke the news to the guild. He was in his room now. Under normal circumstances, Mirajane might wonder if it was okay to leave him alone right now. 

Under _these_ circumstances, Mirajane couldn’t think at all.

Lisanna, Lisanna, Lisanna. The word burned in her mouth and turned into a strangled scream.

There were a lot of kids in Fairy Tail who’d had to grow up too fast. Mirajane and her siblings were far from the only magical children taken in by the guild’s charity, and she knew that the others had had it rough too. 

But even though the others had lost their families and their support systems, they’d also lost the responsibility that came with family. No obligations, no loyalties except to the people they chose. As an older sister, Mirajane had always known that the job of keeping her siblings safe was hers alone. They’d _trusted_ her to protect them, and she—

She’d failed. In the worst way possible.

_Creeeeeaaaaaak._

The door slid open. Mira didn’t look up.

“Fuck off,” Mira whispered, her voice hoarse. The jab was a reflex, not really malicious.

Erza walked over and sat down beside her, ignoring the comment. 

After a few seconds, she said, “Your hair is in your face.”

Mirajane didn’t say anything.

“You look like a total loser,” Erza continued. “You should clip it to the side. Or something.”

“Ugh,” Mira muttered. Her voice was delicate from disuse and she was still trembling, but bantering with Erza was something so well-practiced that it took almost no effort at all. Just to mess with her, Mirajane tugged out her hair tie and put it on her bangs, like some sort of weird backwards ponytail with her bangs sticking straight up. “Is _this_ better?”

“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Erza said. “Three thousand Jewel says you don’t have the guts to wear it in the guild hall.”

I’m not going down to the guild hall, Mira almost said. But then she stopped herself.

The ache in her chest wasn’t gone. The world hadn’t righted itself. Everything was still broken beyond repair.

But somehow, suddenly, Mira had found the strength to stand.


End file.
